College leaders planning to create or expand apprenticeship programs are invited to a national conference October 8-9 hosted by William Rainey Harper College in Illinois.
The agenda will cover innovative approaches for delivering successful apprenticeship programs, marketing strategies targeting employers and potential apprentices, and insights to increase apprentice retention.
Speakers include John Ladd, director of the Office of Apprenticeship at the U.S. Labor Department, and Harper College President Ken Ender.
Practical solutions
It’s a working conference to provide practical solutions to manage and grow an apprenticeship program, says Rebecca Lake, dean of workforce and economic development at Harper. Community and technical colleges can bring teams of up to three people, such as the director or dean of workforce programs, academic dean or faculty program coordinator, and admissions director.
The Joyce Foundation is covering the registration costs, so participants need only pay for travel and lodging. Space is limited, though, and filling up quickly.
Harper is one of the first community colleges to create apprenticeship programs registered with DOL and received a $2.5 million federal American Apprenticeship Initiative grant in 2015, Lake says. As a result, college leaders from all over the country have come to Harper to see first-hand how these programs can be implemented.
As the sponsor of registered apprenticeship programs, “we can serve as the connector,” Lake says. “We help a company we already have a relationship with fill its talent pipeline, recruit potential apprentices and match them with jobs the company had trouble filling.”
A guaranteed job
Harper will have eight registered apprenticeship programs this fall. Two are for jobs for which apprenticeships have traditionally been used: industrial maintenance mechanic and CNC precision machining.
The others are in white-collar fields: banking/finance, cybersecurity, general insurance, graphic arts print production, sales and retail management, and supply chain management logistics.
Companies that employ the apprentices pay their salaries and benefits plus 100 percent of their education. Students who complete the program have no college debt, two or three years of work experience and a job. The cybersecurity program leads to a certificate; those who complete the other programs earn an associate degree.
So far, 154 students have completed an apprenticeship, Lake says. The program has an 88 percent retention rate, and participating students have an average grade point average of 2.57.
In one example, Zurich North America, a branch of the Zurich Insurance Co. based in Switzerland, approached Harper a few years ago because it was having trouble finding qualified claims adjusters and underwriters. The college worked with the company to create an apprenticeship program, and the first class of 19 apprentices earned associate degrees in December.
Because Harper is the program sponsor for its registered apprenticeship program, “we do all the paperwork, register apprenticeships for the companies and provide books for students,” Lake says.
When students graduate, the company has “an employee who already knows how to do the job the way the company wants it done,” she says. “For colleges, apprenticeships help us meet our mission and improve our completion and retention rates.”
